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Skyrocketing assessments on the Toronto home her mother built in 1954 and the Georgian Bay cottage her family bought in 1944 have left her on the edge of losing them.

Every time there's a value reassessment – which, combined with the municipal tax rate, determines how much property tax she'll pay – she spends months fighting it so she can afford to stay where she's always lived.

"I'm getting older and I just don't see how I can keep fighting," Duff said in an interview.

"(But) it's my studio and I cannot leave it," she said of her home in a north Toronto neighbourhood. "It would be suicide, so I'm going to barricade the door."

The three main political parties all agree there's a problem with dramatic assessment spikes in popular neighbourhoods and the impact they have on seniors, and others on fixed incomes, who happen to live there.

But the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats have very different answers – and in an election dominated by funding for religious schools, this issue, which affects millions of homeowners, has received scant attention.

Whichever party comes to power on Oct. 10 will, in part, determine how much property tax homeowners pay, who gets a break and who pays more.

So which is best?

Depends who you are.

The Conservative plan to cap annual assessment increases at 5 per cent a year helps Duff and people like her who own homes or cottages in hot property areas.

The NDP plan to freeze assessments on a primary residence until the home is sold does the same thing but doesn't necessarily help with cottages.

But "if somebody is winning, somebody is losing," said Enid Slack, director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at the University of Toronto.

Under both plans, people who own homes that would have faced high assessment increases are protected.

But since cities still need to raise the same amount of money, they adjust the tax rate, so homeowners whose properties are not rising in value quickly, or may even be declining, end up paying more than they would have without a cap or freeze.

In the case of the Conservative 5 per cent cap, Slack said: "You're saying, if your property value is going up quickly we're going to protect you, but that's at the expense of people whose properties are not going up quickly because somebody has to pay for it."

In the case of the NDP freeze-until-sale plan, Slack said: "You can have two identical homes ... one has sold many times and one not at all and they'll pay vastly different property taxes.

"You're protecting the elderly who've been in their homes for a long time but you're doing so at the expense of new home buyers, because starter homes sell more frequently," Slack said.

The Liberals want to keep the current system but assess homes just once every four years and spread out any increases equally over the following four years.

That means if a property goes up 20 per cent, a homeowner would face a 5 per cent assessment increase each year.

Property tax experts like Slack tend to think Ontario's current market value assessment system, while not perfect, is the best option. But assessments should be done every year, not every four as the Liberals plan to do, she said.

"If you do it every year it's going to be less of a shock," Slack said.

To mitigate the problems for seniors like Duff on fixed incomes, the Liberals have increased the senior's property tax credit to $625 and have promised to introduce a new homeowners grant for seniors, details of which are expected this week.

The Coalition After Property Tax Reform has long pressured the government to introduce a cap on assessment increases, so Bob Topp is thrilled one of the parties has said they'll do it.

His coalition, which he says represents about a million homeowners, is made up of many seniors on fixed incomes and lakefront cottage owners who have seen dramatic assessment increases in recent years.

He knows a capping system that would benefit his members means others will have to pay more but he doesn't agree with the Liberal argument that this means the poor will subsidize the rich.

"Because you happen to live in a certain part of Toronto, say in The Beach or Danforth or Leaside, and (property values) are going up, are you then a wealthy person? Or are you retired, on a fixed income?" Topp said.

"I don't agree that the value of your home can be equated to your wealth," he said, adding that it's unfair for seniors to be driven from their homes because of volatility in the housing market.

In the last assessment, Duff's cottage – which has no electricity, no telephone, no fireplace and no running water in the kitchen – jumped in value 122 per cent to $284,000.

Her Toronto home went up 21 per cent to $857,000. (She appealed and the Toronto home was dropped to $757,000 and cottage to $220,000.)

"I do have a nice house in town and a nice summer cottage. I'm very lucky but it's a devil of a business keeping up with the taxes," said Duff, who lives on a pension and what she makes painting.

"It's been very worrying, frightening in fact."

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